Chapter Text
Sunday morning in the outlook was rather peaceful. So long as Uzi ignored the hissing Disassembly Drone.
Seriously, whenever Uzi got even remotely close to her cage, V would start making a show of how much she wanted to kill her. Uzi got a kick out of sticking her tongue at her, provoking low growls. But there was nothing V could do.
Charles had told her not to take it personally, that V was always like this to new faces. And most of the old ones too.
J remained the opposite, completely ignoring Uzi’s existence from the shadows of her cage. It was almost a cave, really, being built into the wall like that. The one time Uzi decided to step up for a closer look, she got a glare and a growl.
But why bother with either of them when N was happy to let her come over? He didn’t growl or hiss or swipe at the air. Sure, he wasn’t quite the model of ferocity, but he let Uzi get close enough to sketch out the details. So that’s what she did for the first hour of her shift.
At one point she tried drawing V from a distance, but the minute V saw what she was doing she refused to stay still. Uzi Ended up just ripping that page out of the book. She’d have to wait till V wasn’t paying attention to try and draw a female disassembler. Or settle for drawing J’s back.
Through the window, Uzi could see workers dismantling the set pieces from the frenzy. Powerful lights on the ceiling imitated the light of the sun, casting a cheerful glow over everything. The lights in the outlook on as well, though they didn’t have to be. She was the only one there.
Even with N being cooperative, Uzi eventually grew bored of drawing.
“I’m going to go check in with the armory,” she told him. Not that she needed to explain, but it kinda felt wrong to leave without saying anything. “I’ll be back in a while.”
N wined as she walked away, and Uzi paused.
“What was that for?”
He staired at her with big eyes.
“It’s not like I’m leaving, leaving. You can handle being alone for a few minutes.” Can Murder Drones get lonely? Whatever. Uzi closed the door before she wasted any more electrodes pondering it.
She passed only three other workers on her decent to the armory. Most of the floor the outlook was on at this crescent of the arena for the trainers, consisting of meeting areas, equipment compartments, and a lot of other stuff that Uzi wasn’t allowed to see. There was even an entire medical station with their own private technurse. The crescent below hosted the gladiatorial maintenance stuff.
That’s how sections of the arena were organized, buy the halves of the arena they were on and the level they were on. She was on the left crescent, the side reserved as the ‘home base. The right crescent on the same level was the caged crescent, so named because it’s the entry point for anyone who wasn’t one of the home disassemblers. There were compartments for a wide variety of drones, from luxury waiting areas for sporting drones to holding cells for less wiling contestants. Uzi hasn’t seen them herself, but apparently there are two rooms that can hold Disassembly Drones from guest colonies.
The second floor crescent above the outlook was for the bigger game planners, such as the Fields Master and even the Lord Luis. It was probably the most restricted area of the entire backstage. It’s adjacent crescent was reserved for the guests that host.
Above that were three levels before reaching the stands, referred to the three rings as they are not divided like rest. They are for the higher class drones, providing opportunities for gambling, gasoline, and whatever else drones with too much money like. There were inner rings to these that left just enough room for workers to tend to the lighting system of the arena.
That was up. Down were the sublevels, and each of those were twice as big as the above levels due to being underground. Well, more underground. Sublevel one was entirely for the gladiators, technical things on the left and training facilities on the right. Sublevel right is where Thad was most of the time, sparring in gyms and stuff. Maybe she’d get lucky and see him in the armory occasionally.
Sublevel two was the maintenance section, containing massive amounts of technical equipment, janitorial equipment, and whatever other kind of equipment the bosses might say they need. It was also where the aftermath of the arena was delt with.
It was sublevel three and four that finally had a full oval shape rather than having to skirt around the center. Uzi had overheard some of the trainers refer to it as the moon floor. This is where the set design happened, and it’s why the level was double in depth. She wanted to check it out at some point, but not until she was sure she knew the higher levels well enough not to get lost.
Then there was the pit, a level that acted as the living quarters to all the servants of the ring. And below that, the subpit, better known as the Colony’s prison.
The arena as a whole was the single largest structure of the entire planet, negating the ruins of human civilization. It was a massive feat considering the dangerous environment of the surface. Other colonies had rings of their own, but they were shadows to the original. After all, the second largest colony only had about four hundred thousand citizens. The Catacombs was well past a million.
Uzi found the armory to be full of Worker Drones clad in the simple black clothing of long-term servants. They worked at sharpening blades, polishing armor, rusting bad swords, and all the other things that needed to be done after a big weekend of fights.
None of them paid her any mind as she wandered through the cacophony. It was at this point that Uzi realized she wasn’t entirely sure on where to begin. She’d been asked to sharpen swords every day, but she didn’t know which swords were hers to attend to, nor which grinding stone she was expected to sit at.
She ended up just standing there as she processed all that was happening, and a few of the workers began to give her odd looks. Maybe she should just go back upstairs and come down when it is quitter.
“Doorman kid, good to see you again.” The keeper weaved his way toward her. “Come, come, we could use all the help we can get. There’s more blades to be polished than these buffoons can handle.”
The workers who’d looked up were quick to duck back down into their tasks.
Uzi followed the keeper deeper in until they found a free grinding stone.
“This is one of our last good ‘uns, I won’t let any armature waste blade on it. You’re still learnin’ a but better for you to learn with this so it won’t muddle your work.”
“You get some of the higher swords,” he patted the rack he referred to. “These blades have owners unlike the ones that lot is tending to, most of ‘em belong to young gladiators. We don’t want them miked up, so be sure to put them back. You’ll use tabbing to mark what’s done.” He opened up two drawers in a tool chest, one with markers and the other with white strips of paper. He took a paper and pulled off the tab, then stuck the ends together. “Write your initials on one of these then wrap it round the hilt. Easy. Got all that, kid?”
“Yes sir.”
“Alvin is fine. No need to be formal in here.”
It was kind of wired, as Uzi usually wasn’t this formal to any drone. Not her dad, definitely not her teachers, and not really to other parents. But for whatever reason it just felt right to say sir to this guy.
Alvin waved a drone over. This drone was in black to indicate that he was a servant drone, but he had an armband with the insignia of an anvil, hammer, and blade .
“Any questions and I’m not around, just ask one of these fellas. Their my best drones. Geoff here can even handle the champions’ blades.”
Geoff inclined his head.
“Alright, no off to work both of you.”
Geoff left, not having said a single word, so Uzi picked out a blade from the rack.
Despite the din of other drones working, she soon relaxed into the chore. It no longer felt so crowded.
She managed to sharpen four blades to satisfaction, but now her internal timer was warning her that it’d almost been an hour. She needed to go check on the Disassemblers.
“Leaving so soon?” Alvin spoke out when he noticed her aiming for the exit.
“Sorry, Sir- Alvin. I can’t leave them for more than an hour at a time.” She’d also promised N she’d be back. Not that that should matter, he’s just a Disassembler.
“Very well, I suppose it can’t be helped. I’ll se you later today then, and don’t forget my offer.”
Uzi gave him a short bow, and then hurried for the stairs. She wasn’t sure if there was a penalty for being gone longer than an hour, but she’d rather not risk finding out.